FTSE up in early trading, down by midday on Greece stats

News of a wider than expected budget deficit in Greece spooked investors and sent equities broadly down. Risk sensitive banks moved down while commodity stocks lost territory on demand fears. The top share index was trading at 5,677, down 0.81 per cent or 46.43 points by 1305 BST.

Chris Bradshaw
shareprices.com - Thursday, April 22, 2010

Printable version email to a friend Subscribe to shareprices.com newsfeed

Stocks moved down across Europe and the FTSE 100 was no exception. Eurostat reported that the budget deficit in Greece in 2009 was 13.6 per cent, a stark contrast to the Greek government's projection of 12.7 per cent. This indicates that Greece will have to tap into IMF/EU money very soon. The news sent commodity prices down across the board as Tullow Oil, Fresnillo, Cairn Energy, Petrofac Ltd, Royal Dutch Shell and Lonmin all lost between 2 per cent and 1 per cent.

Steadily worsening news about Greece's finances also affected banking stocks as investors worry about their exposure to Greek national debt. Recent news including fraud accusations against Goldman Sachs and indications that banking regulation is picking up speed is not helping, with HSBC, Lloyds Banking Group, Barclays and Standard Chartered losing 0.81 per cent, 0.25 per cent, 1.42 per cent and 1.18 per cent respectively by midday.

Some blue chip stocks are performing well, with Intertek at the top of the leader board as JP Morgan upgraded its rating for the testing company. Shares in Intertek achieved a life time high by midday as the stock traded at 1,548.00p, up 2.86 per cent. Unilever picked up 1.55 per cent on a ratings upgrade from Panmure Gordon.

 

Latest News

Related News

FTSE 100 Latest

ValueChange
5,875.9314.33  % fall